But how did these slow but noticeable changes come to pass? In the late 1990s, amid the confidence brought on by the worldwide preeminence of Washington’s unipolar model of globalization, Latin America duly marched in stride. At the time, the region was still taken seriously as a premium location for orthodox financial transactions. But a sensational shift would begin to take place that would affect US trade policy. This change was brought about by a de facto grassroots implementation of something akin to a Lockean Social Contract. It was increasingly obvious that IMF-mandated neo-liberal economics and the fiscal stringencies inspired by the Washington Consensus were neither eternal nor universal. However, it was also argued by many conventional global fiscal managers that at the time Latin America had no viable alternative. Bolivian activists such as Felipe Quispe and Evo Morales were seen as vendors of snake oil: even if a populist regime gained power, it eventually would go down in flames as a result of political and economic realities. These orthodox tribunes prophesied that without any viable alternative, the populist leaders would have to eventually lash themselves to a neo-liberal formula in order to survive.

The White House’s pressure on the world community to endorse its effort to dislodge Saddam Hussein may have helped to compromise its gravitational pull over the region. An unexpected example in this respect is Chile, the only South American country at the time to have initialed a free-trade pact with the United States. Washington surely counted on Santiago's congruency with its main foreign policy guideline: its unpopular sortie in Iraq. But during the UN March 2003 deliberations, Soledad Alvear, Chile’s foreign minister at the time, presented one of the strongest cases heard before the UN Security Council against the US thesis that it had the unilateral right to invade a member state for good cause. Seen for decades as well disposed to the United States, Chile’s unwillingness to back the Iraq invasion registered a pivotal shift in its behavior. Overweening US diplomacy may well have accelerated the electoral success of parties whose leaders are no longer automatically prepared to capitulate to US policy mandates. After 2003, the “pink tide” leadership came into its own.

The Major Actors–Chávez, Lula, Kirchner, and Morales

While Washington's eyes were riveted on Iraq, a foiled coup in Venezuela and the election of new Argentine and Brazilian presidents were changing the ideological equation in Latin America. In the April 2002 coup attempt against Chávez, it seemed at first that his administration had been overthrown and that the White House could now prepare to add another “democratizing” feather to its cap. But Chávez held on and managed to survive the attempted coup, which had been bitterly nursed by a disaffected middle-class and business-led opposition. The coup itself had been kindled by an inflammatory rightist media, 85 percent of which was controlled by owners who loathed Chavez.

The failed coup all but destroyed an extensive mythology that democratization was at the forefront of US policy goals for the hemisphere, since Chávez had ruled Venezuela in an entirely constitutional manner for his entire tenure in office. Thereafter, Chávez was not just a big-mouthed radical and controversial president, but quickly became the best-known exemplar of the “pink tide”—a wave of left-leaning social reformers who were being elected to office by strong majorities throughout a turbulent South America. Soon after Chávez came to power, his policies served as the inspiration for the separate agendas set up in each “pink tide” country. What united these agendas was the populist impulse—the belief that the presidency could be used to provide leadership and social justice for every corner of the nation.

Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva almost won the Brazilian presidency in 1989; his initial series of defeats could be partially credited to fears that his policies, as well as his personality, would come to antagonize Washington. Lula’s election in 2002 marked a tipping point in the spread of electorally-viable populist candidates in South America. Although Lula's populist tendencies noticeably diminished into his presidency by his surprising emphasis on monetarist economic policies and an institutional continuity in foreign policy-making, Lula still used the presidential voice to rally the citizens with calls for social justice.

Argentina had traditionally been less inhibited about quarreling with a Washington-centered vision of world affairs than Brazil. When Nestor Kirchner was elected president of Argentina in April 2003, ending a kaleidoscopic series of temporary tenants of the Casa Rosada, he sent a signal to Washington that strengthening the country's internal stability would take precedence over repaying its debt, as mandated by the IMF. Kirchner has since strengthened relations with a host of countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa and has become an important force on the side of the world stage that does not swiftly move to accommodate itself to Washington’s desiderata.

A great success of the “pink tide” was the 2006 election of coca farmer, indigenous activist, and professed socialist, Evo Morales, as president of Bolivia. Morales, who came to power in an unimpeachably democratic process, has managed so far to only barely placate his largely indigenous supporters while unsuccessfully making conciliatory gestures to the rest of the Bolivian polity. Even a clearly hostile US State Department has nominally accommodated itself to his presidency as demonstrated by the relatively lukewarm treatment he has received from the State Department through much of his tenure. But this acquiescence was coupled with a rather dire warning to the victor by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who insists that she has her own definition of democracy. Even Paul Wolfowitz, attempting to rebrand himself from Iraq hawk to World Bank high-flying dove, reached out to Morales in hopes of finding common ground.

Where the Tide is Rising: Chile, Mexico, and Peru

Even countries that are not overtly populist are still subject to contending forces that cause them to be far from quiescent regarding US policy. The election of the Socialist Michelle Bachelet to the Chilean presidency in 2006 was an important event, although Chile is not yet considered part of the “pink tide.” But this fact cannot give comfort to those in Washington who counted on Santiago’s automatic backing. As the daughter of military officers tortured by the Pinochet dictatorship, Bachelet is not likely to be a major sword carrier for the White House.